Otherworldly wonder

If you're looking for a destination that's unlike any other, the magnificent Flinders Ranges in South Australia are the answer.

- SAMANTHA TRENOWETH

There is nowhere on Earth like the Flinders Ranges. Rainbow-striped mountains zig-zag out of a vast, sunstruck desert plane; ancient river red gums spread their roots along the banks of perfectly clear, silvery streams; leafy, green microclimates shelter a stone’s throw from barren, rocky gorges. There is something altogether otherworldly about this place.

But it’s not just the stop-you-in-your-tracks beauty of the Flinders Ranges that makes it unique. This 600-million-year-old landscape was described by geologist and explorer Sir Douglas Mawson as “one great outdoor museum”. It provides a precious, unparalleled record of the evolution of life on Earth, including a cache of the oldest fossils in the world. And it’s recently been nominated for World Heritage listing.

It’s no surprise then that this region has been a haunt of scientists and artists since Matthew Flinders sent a painter and two botanists to climb Mount Brown, back in 1802, and describe what they saw there. Hans Heysen (for whom the spectacular Heysen Trail was named) made 11 trips to the Flinders between 1926 and 1949, drawn by what he described as “the bones of nature laid bare”. Horace Trenerry was the master painter of the Flinders. Jeffrey Smart had a different, more desolate take. More recently, the author Fiona McFarlane brought its rugged beauty and harsh colonial history to life in The Sun Walks Down. And Tom Carment has captured its moods and shades over a lifetime of packing up his paints and camping out there.